Barrel bomb attack kills 11 kids in Aleppo
LIFESPAN CUT SHORT: A study says post Arab Spring, lifespan dropped across region
BEIRUT: Eleven children were killed on Thursday in a barrel bomb attack carried out by government forces on a rebel-held neighbourhood of Syria’s Aleppo city, a monitor said.
“Fifteen civilians, among them 11 children, were killed in a barrel bomb attack on the Bab al Nayrab neighbourhood” in the south of Aleppo city, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said
The group also reported eight civilians, including two children, were killed on Thursday in rebel fire on the government-held west of the city.
A journalist in Bab al Nayrab saw rescue workers and civilians digging through the rubble of collapsed buildings.
One man carried out the lifeless body of a baby no bigger than his forearm. Its eyes were closed and its body was white with dust except for speckles and smears of blood.
Elsewhere, a civil defence worker protected the face of another dead child as his colleagues scraped away the rubble encasing the rest of the child’s body.
Syria’s regime has been accused of regularly using barrel bombs — crude, explosive devices — on rebel-held areas that are home to civilians, and other parties to the conflict are not known to have used the weapons.
President Bashar al Assad and his government deny using barrel bombs.
Meanwhile, a study released on Thursday said the conflict and civil strife that has erupted across the eastern Mediterranean region since the Arab Spring began in 2010 has shortened lifespans and damaged health.
Yemen, Tunisia and Egypt all lost about three months in life expectancy between 2010 and 2013, with deteriorating conditions threatening health gains made over the previous two decades, researchers said.
In Syria — ravaged by a civil war that has left more than 290,000 people dead and displaced millions since March 2011 — average life expectancy has been cut by six years, they reported in the journal The Lancet Global Health.
Men in Syria typically lived to about 75 on the eve of conflict.
By 2013, the average age of death was about 69.
For Syrian women, the decline was from 80 to 75 over the same period.
“Recent conflicts have shattered the basic infrastructure in a number of countries,” said lead author Ali Mokdad, a professor at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
“As a result, millions of people are facing dire water shortages and poor sanitation that will lead to disease outbreaks.”
Infant mortality is also rising some countries, the study found.
Again, the situation was most dire in Syria: Average annual drops in infant deaths of six per cent from 2000 to 2010 gave way to an increase of more than nine per cent per year between 2010 and 2013. in